Bella Mackie

Cosmopolitan's best books of 2021 Grazia's best books of 2021

How to Kill Your Family

Hana 

But neither will I emerge half broken. I will go on living, thriving, and this period of my life will not mark me.

A darkly humorous debut novel that follows a cunning antihero as she gets her revenge When I think about what I actually did, I feel somewhat sad that nobody will ever know about the complex operation that I undertook. Getting away with it is highly preferable, of course, but perhaps when I’m long gone, someone will open an old safe and find this confession. The public would reel. After all, almost nobody else in the world can possibly understand how someone, by the tender age of 28, can have calmly killed six members of her family. And then happily got on with the rest of her life, never to regret a thing. When Grace Bernard discovers her absentee millionaire father has rejected her dying mother’s pleas for help, she vows revenge and coldly sets out to get her retribution—by killing them all, one by one. Compulsively readable, Bella Mackie’s debut novel is driven by a captivating first-person narrator who talks of “self-care” and social media while calmly walking the reader through her increasingly baroque acts of murder. But then, Grace is imprisoned for a murder she didn’t commit. Outrageously funny, compulsive, and subversive, How to Kill Your Family is a wickedly dark romp about class, family, love . . . and murder.

A Novel

alba 🪻

There have been a few moments like that on my journey —times when I've wondered if God is telling me to get off this road and embrace a different life. But then I remember that I don't believe in God and if he does exist, then he gave me this life to begin with. What would he know?

Nothing like the promise of a murder to boost one's productivity, it turns out.

Charlotte 

We became close, as I leant into my new position as closest relative and confidant, hopeful that it would be short-lived with your assistance. 

She'd been spared, but that was always negotiable. 

Someone feeling smug for helping you is not the same as loving you.

He used to stroke my arm as I fell asleep, knowing I would get anxious when the day came to an end. He'd lie by my side and trace the freckles on my arm. 

What a generous man my uncle was. In just twenty minutes, he'd given me a free drink, and a lead on how to kill him. Who says the ultra-rich don't help the needy?

I expect growing up relying on just one person means that I need more information than a normal person when it comes to trust.

Aimee :)

One more to go, daddy dearest. I was coming for you.

I knew it was her in seconds. I didn't spend years watching her grow up online without knowing innately what she looked like from every angle. What a depressing waste of brain space. 'What did you spend your twenties doing, Grace? Well I watched an entitled airhead make vlogs about lip balm and I learnt all about her top five sunglasses shapes. Maybe I should off myself too.

That's how teenage relationships should be. They burn short, but boy do they burn bright.

Why do men send unsolicited pictures of their dicks?

He proposed on her birthday. I don't mean to imply that Jimmy has no spontaneity but people who propose on big meaningful dates lack imagination.

You make plans and God laughs. I made plans to murder seven people and ended up in jail for the death of someone I didn't even touch. God would be having a hernia.

I feel quite often that it's good not to know what goes on in the male mind. If we did, I suspect we would spend bar of our lives in fearful despair.

If you are delusional enough to believe that anyone wants to see a grainy iPhone picture of your faccid little friend, you deserve to get bled for it.

I've thought of it many times since, always with a smile. Because even at 13 (and though I was too nice back then to let myself think it explicitly). I comforted myself with the knowledge that I would grow up and mooriored now, really know, the pain that we had suffered.

Besides, my mother had already met the man she would give her whole heart to. The man who would become my father. The man who would promise her the world and shower her with gifts. The man who I would grow up swearing to ruin.

Must have been a fun night. I'm glad. I'm not a monster. It's nice that they're leaving the world on a high note. It's more than Marie was given, but I must be the better person here. I'm going to decimate their entire family, the least I can allow them is a goody bag and a spin at the roulette table.

I don't believe in God, obviously. We live in a time of science and the Kardashians, so I think I'm safely in the sane camp there. But also, any god with real clout wouldn't have paired me with these people and given me such a calling. So no God. But I do feel like someone is smiling down on me today.

The justice system in this country is a joke, and there is nothing which illustrates that more than this one sentence: I have killed several people (some brutally, others calmly) and yet I currently languish in jail for a murder I did not commit.

My story is just that - mine - though I know readers would lap it up if I ever published it - not that I ever could. But it's nice to know that people would pore over it nonetheless. It would be a best seller, and the masses would rush to the shops, hoping to know more about the attractive and tragic young woman who could commit such a terrible act. 

Thoroughly enjoyed however I wish the ending had been a bit different. Found the author to be humorous and found pleasure in the writing style. 

Tricia K

I finally went back and finished this. It was ok, an interesting idea just a bit one note in delivery and faded away towards the end.

Emma Cragg

I had to read this for school and i did enjoy it but not as much as i thought i would. The book was mostly boring even though it was about murder 🥲 it did have a good plottwist at the end though

Femke

mimansa 

Don't want to start rambling and go off track about the book but the Author clearly does so. After the first two chapters you realize the plot of the story and continue to read so as to know it in a detailed manner. But to want to know the whys, hows and wheres in this story, the readers have to go through a jungle of unwanted obsrvations and irrelevant information. At a point, the wheres and hows weren't even worth reading through the long unwanted chapters. 
Overall, the plot of the story is intriguing, but the writing really put me off ://

Interesting plot, pretty dark, but was kind of disappointed by the ending. The first 3/4 of the book from Grace’s perspective were pretty good, but the ending was kinda meh. Not bad, but could’ve ended in a more thrilling manner.

Erin Goss

Archiell

How to kill your family mais para how to Waste your time?

Duas estrelas porque o início foi algo de jeito depois não sabia se estava a ler um livro sobre um murder ou um livro do Eça de Queiroz (as 74 páginas a descrever uma sala fora mais interessantes)

Syahla Aurel

where do i start, the first chapter and the early murder was okay and enjoyable, but when she starts planning to murder her uncle is kinda WEIRD LIKE WHY WOULD YOU GO TO THAT KIND OF PLACE WITH YOUR UNCLE??? 
the ending was very anticlimatic, not surprising, and confusing, like there were no important hint about her secret brother in the early chapter?? like her brother is just suddenly there? and the very long chapter was very painful to read
overall, the beginning chapter was very promising but the next chapter went downhill

First half of the book was at least interesting, the premise, the introduction of characters, her motivation why she wants to kill her family. But the second half and that plot twist in the end was just so infuriating. People who gave this book more than 1 star are beyond generous.

Ziggy

u wanna be light yagami with an essay due in 2 hours so bad.. dont piss me off

The premise is truly exciting. The title also helped. It took me a while to get into it but after the first couple chapters, it was smooth-sailing. But then… I was bothered. This book really feels like it’s written by a millennial who thinks it’s fun to make fun of literally everything. At first, it was funny but it started to get annoying really fast. Grace was hard to love and I found myself hating her as the story progresses. Maybe that was the author’s intention, but it didn’t work for me. It just felt whiny and Grace is such a pick me. Another thing is, it tries to come off as a somewhat feminist book but at the same time, it’s also not feminist at all? I’m not a fan of the ending, it just feels lazy. Was actually pretty angry after I finished the book because I felt I wasted a lot of time trying to find what’s so good about How to Kill Your Family when… it’s not. It’s not very good at all.

Sashi

The title of the book was the main thing that drew me to reading this book it’s very British and there’s a lot of long chapters which I’m not necessarily a fan of but the plot was good I feel like then end bit where her brother sends her an email where he knows and has witnessed all her murders was very unexpected.

jess larry

life's too short to force myself to finish this. way too many unnecessary rants, and the narration style is really not for me

2 stars just for the idea

short review: 

bizarre, grating, and violently british. i can't tell if the ending makes up for it or makes it worse.

long review: 

it had such an interesting premise, but the narrative style was grating. not necessarily the views of the fmc, because good for her honestly, but the diction and sentence structure were truly abominable. and the fact that the fmc presented herself as a woman's rights activist but spent the entire book harassing women without analyzing their choices in the context of a patriarchal society. this would perhaps make sense as satire of the self-absorption of white feminism, but the author is apparently both white and a part of british peerage, so take from that what you will. also, the fmc was presented as an intelligent, competent woman and killer to boot, so the entire idea of her putting her confession on paper is utterly ridiculous, made more so by her being bested by a man at the end. i will, however, say it was quite funny at times.

2½ stars

A promising storyline and concept but VERY long chapters. I cannot deal with long chapters (that might just be personally but I found myself flicking forward multiple times to see how many pages were left). Some good moments and interesting characters but pretty bad ending… Maybe pick it up if you are a fast reader but for someone like me who takes a while it was sometimes a chore.

George McCartney

Bilge Ince

Dark, humorous and witty. All I need for this October.

Grace is an inmate in the Limehouse prison for a murder she didn’t commit. But was she really innocent? Yes, for this alleged murder, but no for many others. And this is the story of why and how…

 How awful it must be to know in your bones that those around you were being picked off one by one and to realise that you must therefore be next. Even worse, it seemed like nobody was listening to him – a terrible thing for a powerful white man to experience.

I feel like this took me a while to read this book and the start was very slow. However the ending was good and has left me feeling confused lol so overall 3.5/5

Marcie Allen

3.5⭐️

I feel like this took me a while to read this book and the start was very slow. However the ending was good and has left me feeling confused lol so overall 3.5/5

Teeeeeesha

Funny, dark and twisted, this is everything you want in a book. It's well written, off kilter but not in a way that you don't know what's going on. You're gonna love Grace getting her revenge.

Emmm :p

SO FUNNY. it takes bloody ages to get through because Grace feels the need to state and express every single thought she has and it really made me struggle. i read it on a plane from Corfu to Exeter and I still didn’t finish. i continued on a train from Bath to Exeter (and back) and still didn’t finish. it is LONG but it is fun!! i would like to see it as a tv series

Cosmopolitan’s best books of 2021 Grazia’s best books of 2021 ‘Funny and furious and strangely uplifting. Grace is a bitter and beguiling anti-hero with a keen eye for social analysis – even in her most grisly deeds, you never stop rooting for her’ PANDORA SYKES

Beatrice

After a few heavier reads and a rather hectic couple of weeks, I was longing to dive into a funny, comfort read. So, of course, I plucked How to Kill Your Family from my never-ending TBR. What better way to relax than with a book about multiple murders?

The premise for this was great, and I was super excited about it going in. I enjoy a good mystery, love an unreliable narrator and am all for irony and sass in my MCs, so this seemed like a perfect fit. Alas, this is one of those cases where the execution just didn't live up to my expectations. The book started out strong but slowly started its slow descent downhill, right up until it crashed and burned at the end.

Grace is the illegitimate daughter of a millionaire who abandoned her and her mother, ignoring her mother's pleas for help as she was close to dying. After discovering this, Grace vows revenge and decides to kill every member of her father's family, leaving him for last. The story is narrated by Grace in journal form, as she is in prison for murder... except it's the only one she didn't commit.

I enjoyed the journal form, even though it made very little sense to me why Grace should ever want to commit to paper a full account of every murder she committed and so far got away with. Still, her narrating voice was snarky and sarcastic and perfect to set the tone for the book. This unfortunately didn't last very long, as soon she just became annoying and borderline offensive. The story started to drag from very early on, and I almost started to feel like reading this book was a chore.

We have a front-row seat to Grace's attempts at social commentary, which typically reduce to her hating everyone and everything and resenting the world for all that she missed. Although her feelings could be understandable, and could have been written in such a way as to allow for her character to grow, there was a distinct sense that we should be agreeing with her full stop even when she is spewing hate for no discernible reason. There were also a few very uncomfortable scenes and behaviours, which I just could not get on board with.

I didn't DNF this as I kept hoping I would actually start enjoying it, or at least find it funnier than I had so far, but unfortunately I never did. There were a few funny scenes here and there, but they were sadly not enough to carry the whole book. I also absolutely hated the ending, which just felt like an afterthought tacked on for the sake of one final plot twist.

While I appreciate what the author was trying to do here, the class commentary was just not effective and in fact more often than not was reduced to a slew of stereotypes and never-ending judgment with absolutely no foundation to stand on. For me, Grace was not the witty anti-hero she should be, but rather came across as an extremely unlikeable, self-centred and, ultimately, shallow individual. Sadly, this one was just not for me. 

CW:(view spoiler)[This book contains mentions of death, murder, car accident, sexual content, drug use. (hide spoiler)]

For more reviews, visit Book for Thought.

I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

Not my cup of tea. Honestly Grace is ultimatly so unlikeable. She's so fixated on getting her vengeance and so immersed that I just could not stand her. And also, I'm so disgusting by how she murder's people who in my moral view just do not deserve it, and how she debates murdering completely innocent people just make me think what the hell. I really do not think this book was what I was expecting, I wanted better and it was such a let down especially because people have really enjoyed this book. 

I think this book would however be liked by people who are getting into reading, beginners, people who haven't read alot of books. They won't have any expectations or ideas of how a books plot should be structured or anything, so they would go into this book completely blind, and can then have an unbiased view of this book. 

The reason why I gave it 2 stars is because I do respect the whole idea Bella Mackie has, and i respect the beginning of this book and the ending, i feell like they are very hugely influential to this rating.

surtified™

Not my cup of tea. Honestly Grace is ultimatly so unlikeable. She's so fixated on getting her vengeance and so immersed that I just could not stand her. And also, I'm so disgusting by how she murder's people who in my moral view just do not deserve it, and how she debates murdering completely innocent people just make me think what the hell. I really do not think this book was what I was expecting, I wanted better and it was such a let down especially because people have really enjoyed this book. 

I think this book would however be liked by people who are getting into reading, beginners, people who haven't read alot of books. They won't have any expectations or ideas of how a books plot should be structured or anything, so they would go into this book completely blind, and can then have an unbiased view of this book. 

The reason why I gave it 2 stars is because I do respect the whole idea Bella Mackie has, and i respect the beginning of this book and the ending, i feell like they are very hugely influential to this rating.

Apiecalypse Jen

Joana da Silva

I HATE writing bad reviews but this book.......... Stay away from it. Save your money, your e-reader space, everything. It promised everything and gave me nothing but despair and an extreme loss of time.

I enjoyed this book. I did however predict the ‘twist’ however. I feel like the extra chapter I had in the Waterstones edition opens up a opportunity for the story to potentially continue in, which I do prefer. 

Zoe Kelly

Maga P

Was up to a good start but then it got meandering at times (there's some passages that could've been cut, I think) and while I looooved that Grace was by no means a likeable character, all her rambling started to get annoying after a while. So much so that I found myself struggling to finish, and probably would've skipped chapters if it wasn't for the fact that I was listening to the audiobook.  

The endgame... completely blindised me, and not in a good way.  It felt like it just came out of nowhere. I don't completely dislike where it left Grace and I even think there's a possibility for an open ending that favors her more, but it didn't feel fully integrated into the narrative. 

It's a good concept though and the bits I enjoyed I enjoyed a lot, but I don't think it's a book I'll revisit.

How to Kill Your Family

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